Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 315 Arctic Circle Cultural Development

In Nagasaki Port, "Cao Cao," a young man who had come to the city to make a living, got caught up in a rice ball fighting frenzy. In the chaos, he lost consciousness and was eventually discovered in a daze. The adults from the western region noticed the fight at the street corner where the rice balls were being distributed and sent a team to stop it. The fighters fled out of the city, and the "rice ball war" between the two families was finally stopped.

These two local gangs just wanted to monopolize the rice balls and prevent outsiders from entering the market; they didn't dare to go against the adults who distributed the rice balls.

As a country bumpkin who had been beaten to the ground, "Cao Cao" was carried on a stretcher and taken to the clinic. There, the old master physician examined his bones, and with a slight pinch and pull, his bones were set with a crack.

Cao Cao, with her leg in a cast, and a large group of villagers were asked to fill out a report. This personal report required them to disclose personal information such as whether they knew how to read, where they were born, and whether they had any special skills.

After being identified as someone who could pilot a boat, Cao Cao was classified as a second-class talent.

Japan is not a good place. A catty of mutton costs 120 wen in Japan, while the price of mutton in Japan has been 24 wen this year. However, for daily necessities, such as soap, the petrochemical raw materials shipped from Japan are processed into finished products and cost 10 wen for five large pieces, but in Japan they cost 15 wen per piece.

This back-and-forth trade left merchants with huge profit margins, and these huge profits were regularly supplied to the "financial giants of Yandu." Among these central capital giants, the most famous was the royal family.

Indeed, the Wall Street leaders in modern China are not Jewish financial groups, but rather the eight surnames and fourteen prominent clans headed by the emperor. They operate behind the scenes, exploiting those "uncivilized lands" overseas until they are skin and bones.

After seeing the general nutritional status of the recruits, Xuan Chong couldn't help but feel relieved: the current Han dynasty's exploitation of Japan is even more ruthless than the American exploitation of the Koreans in his previous life.

After recovering from his injuries, Cao Cao reported for duty two days later. The Han scholar who was recruiting people saw that he was carrying a bamboo knife on his back, so he gave him a new name.

He was then given a nameplate, and the recruitment officer told him that from then on, this word would be added before his name.

Cao Cao, oh, now it's called Binqindao (meaning fragrant grass encroaching on the ancient road, indicating tenacious vitality). He was very happy after getting the new name, and also saw other nameplates with characters containing water, such as "boat" and "fishing".

The Neo-Confucian rationale behind the practices of scholars in the Han Dynasty is as follows: the most important aspect of transforming barbarians into Han Chinese was bestowing surnames, and then using these surnames as their own. These surnames were to be obtained based on "meritorious service" so that their descendants could perform ancestral rites. — Ancestors had merit, and lineages had virtue.

This group of young men recruited from Japan and sent to the countryside had their surnames changed, and they had no regional connection with the people of Japan. They were then assigned to the northern mainland based on their surnames, and their descendants began to regard this generation as their ancestors.

As for where the previous generation came from, for example, during the period when Bin Qindao's son, grandson, and great-grandson were still alive, they would explain to outsiders that "their ancestors came from nowhere, which is unknown." After five generations, they would claim to have come from "Jiangnan" and attach themselves to the major surnames within the Han Chinese community.

…ethnic integration…

In 2112, new regional cultures are emerging. Unlike Western maritime civilizations, whose cultures are concentrated in "upper-class art," European nobles often distinguished regional cultures by the style of their imperial collections.

The culture of Han Chinese people in different regions evolved based on their clothing, food, housing, transportation, marriage, and funeral customs. Once their clothing, food, housing, and transportation changed, their customs also changed.

For example, nowadays, because Hanbei is located at a high altitude, the staple food is no longer noodles and rice but potatoes. As for protein, they rely on the abundant fishery resources of the North China Sea. Now, customs similar to those in Fujian, such as worshipping the ship god, and the worship of the Great Immortal in the Heiqiu River basin, are gradually emerging.

Of course, all of the above belong to unorthodox rituals. As a scholar, Xuan Chong guided the region to move as close as possible to Han traditions in terms of changing customs and habits. For example, the millet sacrifice and the Western sacrifice, these orthodox rituals, were presided over by Xuan Chong.

The most famous dish in the various settlements right now is mashed potatoes wrapped around fish. Mashed potatoes are mixed with enough salt, wrapped around diced fish, brushed with oil, and baked in the oven. This creates a crispy outer crust while the fish inside remains tender and steamed. It's then served with barley tortillas, and if available, pickled vegetables.

Xuan Chong believes this dish needs seasonings. Fortunately, the Han Dynasty is a unified empire. It can obtain large quantities of chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns from Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, and scallions from Shandong. Otherwise, eating tasteless mashed potatoes would be boring all day.

The Hanbei cuisine has begun to emerge. Oh, just like "Xinjiang Big Plate Chicken," the history of this cuisine is quite new.

In fact, potatoes are difficult to grow in such extreme temperatures, requiring mulch film and straw rolls for insulation.

However, influenced by modern Chinese education, people who come to the north always want to plant something. They don't seek economic benefits, but simply to bring a sense of security to the local area.

In the study of local governance in modern China, in some places, "farming" is like maintaining local "security"—it doesn't have any economic benefits on the surface, but it's all for the sake of local stability.

For example, in modern China, local governments might use prices far exceeding market rates to maintain local agricultural production.

Why? This is because even if communication channels between the local area and the outside world become chaotic, the local people will not become restless and uneasy because they "lack food".

…farming is to the Han people what waggh is to the Orks…

In 2112, the expedition team of the Hanhai Protectorate reached the Qian River basin (Yenisei River) further east. This is the river with the largest water volume among the three major rivers in the Xianbei Plain, and the original inhabitants of this region are the "Gekun people".

This is a race that has been recorded since the time of Emperor Wu of Han, but it has never risen on the grasslands and has always been ruled by the Xiongnu and Xianbei. Now, its total population in the north is no more than 20,000, making it an extremely rare ethnic group.

Because they are so few in number and usually hide from humans, the Orks have no interest in fighting them. Just like how the Orks wouldn't go to the ocean to fight dolphins now.

If a group is small enough and its only goal is survival, the Orks will not expend resources to lock onto it. Nor will they force the people on a piece of land to submit, as humans do, in order to "occupy a large area of ​​land."

Xuan Chong's war was aimed at gaining "supreme information control" over the land, so he bypassed the Ork-controlled area and went directly north to find these tribes.

These twenty-eight tribes, which roamed the frozen tundra of the north, all knelt and accepted the rule of the Hanbei Protectorate after it declared its dominion over them. Led by their elders, each tribe knelt and accepted the rulership.

This relieved Xuan Chong, who had been worried about "indigenous conflict." The reason, of course, was that he saw stone tablets erected here centuries and decades ago, with inscriptions such as "By the Emperor."

Good heavens, it really has been like this since ancient times. And these indigenous people even know the process better than the exploration team from Xuanchong. After kneeling, they started offering furs as tribute, pointing to the trinkets on the exploration team's body and demanding a replacement. A knife could be exchanged for an Arctic fox pelt, and firearms and bullets were hard currency.

Eastern dynasties had always maintained a loose, tributary system of rule over the harsh, cold lands. Even in the worst-case scenario, they would send people to capture laborers, but they would never resort to massacring entire villages.

The reason the Russian expedition in Xuanchong's timeline looted and pillaged their way through was because the "navigators" didn't bring enough supplies and resorted to plunder. Their core objective was to reach the East, and they were ruthless in their methods of achieving that goal. Their control over the Far East mirrored the British and French model of control over islands in the ocean.

The purpose of the westward exploration during the Liao and Jin dynasties was not to reach the West, since there was already a better Silk Road. They simply sent envoys northward to contact the indigenous people and accept fur tributes, or perhaps some hot-headed rulers wanted to capture mythical beasts to refine elixirs of immortality.

The Russians' eastward expansion was not driven by greed for land; what they truly desired were warm-water ports, so their territorial expansion in northern Asia was merely incidental.

Even after the Russians established settlements on the lands they had ravaged, burned, and expelled, the population still didn't increase. Their Eastern European culture also didn't suit the frigid climate, so the Eastern Europeans stationed there always longed to return. Xuan Chong quipped: "Body of nomads, heart of Vikings, cosplaying as Rome?"

How are thousands of miles of mountains and rivers connected?

Monotheistic religions face a paradox when establishing vast empires: different regions inevitably produce different cultures. Monotheistic religions tend to adopt a strategy of scrambling to eliminate other regional cultures and filling in the gaps with the same colored blocks, all centered around themselves.

The ruling culture here can be likened to "painting".

Even the largest Western paintings are always within a single perspective, with a central point around which all surrounding scenery serves as a backdrop. This works well when depicting everyday scenes, but once the viewpoint expands beyond the normal field of vision, it becomes difficult for the scenes at the edges of a colossal painting to maintain symmetry around the central point. Therefore, all large-scale Western paintings are remarkably awe-inspiring, much like their vast empires—a beauty born from precise correspondence within a grand system.

In Eastern paintings, "mountains are mountains, water is water," and "a sliver of sky lies between mountains and water." A prime example is the "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" scroll. As it slowly unfolds, each scene reveals its natural beauty, with mountains and water seamlessly connected. The scroll depicts the world from the imperial palace in Lin'an to the bustling city streets and suburbs. The myriad aspects of life cannot be fully grasped at a glance from a normal perspective. However, in its creation, every element is interconnected.

Eastern governance is like painting; in the magnificent China, the capital is the most prosperous part of the scroll, and as the landscape unfolds, all the mountains and rivers are interconnected. —The governance of different regional cultures is not a Western-style "unity around a central point," but rather a continuous flow of "humanistic threads" throughout each region.

For example, there are cultural connections between Hanbei and Dongtu, Dongtu and Heiqiujiang, and now there are also cultural connections with Jiangnan. Of course, the outdated custom of having women entertain outsiders is too immoral and must be eliminated.

When Xuan Chong was studying a few years ago, his Confucian teacher said: As long as the cultural lineage is connected, that is the Chinese nation.

The Central Plains of China tacitly accepted that Dongtu and Hanbei had their own cultures, so when Hanbei arrived at the Ice Plains and encountered the local tribes, they also had to tacitly accept the local culture.

Hsuan Chung: Completely eradicating culture will bring retribution, because only the cultural habits formed by the indigenous people over a long period of time can adapt to the region.

From a national strategic perspective, the "branches" within the "main artery" should be extended to these regions, ultimately enabling people to adapt to life there. Establishing connections between the "regional culture" and the culture of Central China is the most effective way to achieve ethnic integration.

Inclusion in a territory doesn't necessarily mean "changing species." Sometimes, even if it does, people can't stay there. Those who can stay don't identify with the center and eventually leave.

For the core areas of civilization, the greatest value of high-altitude and plateau regions is not their "residential value," but rather their forestry, ecology, mineral resources, and spatial value.

In 2112, Xuan Chong, in the name of the Hanbei Protectorate, issued an attitude towards the northern indigenous people: Local residents who were willing to join the branches of the Xia dynasty and to hand over their land to the modern Han for public works projects such as railways and water conservancy, and who were permitted to have their forests surveyed and necessary minerals extracted, would enjoy the same treatment as "people who safeguard the state" within the modern Han.

"People who protect the state" refers to a special group within the Han Dynasty, equivalent to officially recognized local powerful families. Their power of speech was directly linked to "the state they protected."

During their conversation that night, Qin Tianyi explained to Xuan Chong: "Local customs and traditions are like Cinderella, and a region is like the glass slipper. Only Cinderella can wear the glass slipper. When an external imperial group forcibly takes away the glass slipper (region), it's like forcing a foot to fit a shoe. This kind of incompatibility between culture and geography will never heal. It will bleed for decades, even centuries, until the empire declines and becomes the trigger for various ailments."

Xuan Chong listened, but the case Qin Tianyi described was clearly a battle royale version of the Native American version. In Xuan Chong's lifetime, history had not yet progressed to that point.

…A strategic detour within the Arctic Circle…

In 2112, as Xuan Chong bypassed the enemy's main force and conducted a roundabout survey of the northern territories, the Orks on the grasslands had to divert their attention to the due north direction.
There was not much direct confrontation, just like when Tsarist Russia came eastward by waterway, but on the strategic map, it formed a large-scale encirclement.

In the summer of 2112, on the northern lands, a broadcasting tower was broadcasting "Unification Broadcast." The content about the wise governance of the Hanbei Protectorate was limited to ten minutes, while the majority of the time was spent broadcasting everyday life in the north.

For example, the making of "soybean paste". The broadcast starts by announcing the selection of "pickle jars", then the sealing process, and then the many steps of opening and closing the jars every week for observation.

Post offices were set up in each settlement, allowing residents to write letters to the radio station. In their letters, residents could inquire about the stage at which their pickle jars had malfunctioned, causing the taste and color of the pickles to differ from the descriptions on the radio.

Even for such a small matter, the Hanbei Protectorate specifically addressed the issue of soy sauce jars during its monthly exchanges with grassroots personnel, based on the replies received. This ensured that the soy sauce jars in every settlement were producing soy sauce!

…Art students are doing their homework…

Back in Xuan Chong's own household, Qin Tianyi was also making soy sauce jars. Having ruined several jars, she started giving feedback to the broadcast system. Thus, the broadcasts within the Hanbei Protectorate, initially a simple program, escalated into a major "political task" due to the power totem worship effect, enabling every household to produce soy sauce.

Qin Tianyi was reasonable and did not refuse to let her fingers touch such "refined water" just because she was playing "ritual music".

The concept of "unification" of a region is not only about highbrow things like imperial emblems, but also about the everyday things like people's meals and the mending of clothes.

After the Second Red Dynasty, "highbrow and unpopular" was not a positive term. The "Guofeng" (National Style), "Da Ya" (Greater Elegance), and "Xiao Ya" (Lesser Elegance) all concerned the common people, not Athena guarded in a temple.

Qin Tianyi is working on "rites and music," and the most important aspect of "rites and music" is empathy. Empathy relies on "shared memories."
This shared memory could be the sound of "river water melting and flowing" in early spring, or the smell of "soy sauce jars" being opened inside the house.

…Hanbei is gaining territory without a fight…

In conclusion, the more "consensus cultural markers" a region has within its ethnic groups, the higher its cultural integration.

Xuan Chong, a science student, values ​​performance. For him, cultural performance means the content being disseminated has high regional recognition and remains relevant in daily life for years or even decades. It's not a fleeting trend of popular culture, nor is it the "embellished culture praised by officials" that everyone sings praises to. Rather, it's a culture that resonates with the common people, a culture they readily embrace.

The tribes in the north, who had just received modern goods, could hardly withstand such "targeted dissemination of modern culture." In modern Han Chinese, this is called indoctrination.

Most tribes that hunt with arrows in the jungle have just begun to rely on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder fuel for the winter.

After the elderly in these tribes evolved from eating raw food to eating cooked food, they listened to the radio and, somewhat bewildered, began to follow the "Han people from the south" in pursuing a new life.

Oh, they're Han Chinese now too, their ID cards have surnames. The women put their bone sewing needles in storage boxes and replaced them with steel needles. Dozens of people gathered under a big tree to start a market trade.

The Book of Songs, Guofeng, July

In June, eat yu (a type of herb) and jujube; in July, cook mallow and beans.

Peel dates in August, harvest rice in October.

(End of this chapter)